How to Get Your First 10 Customers

Before you have a repeatable marketing machine, you have something better for getting started: the ability to talk to people one at a time. Your first ten customers almost always come from direct, human outreach, not ads.

Why conversations beat ads first

• You learn the exact words that make people buy, which become your future marketing.
• Early customers forgive rough edges from a human they like; they churn instantly from a faceless product.
• You hear the real objections that ads never surface.

Money spent on ads before you have manually closed ten customers is money spent learning nothing.

The arithmetic of ten

Expect rough numbers like: 50 personalized outreaches → 15 conversations → 5 trials or pilots → 2–4 customers. Combine that with your warm network and you reach ten. Realistically, that is six to eight weeks of consistent effort: about five real outreaches a day.

Where your first ten come from

1. Warm network: people who already trust you, and their referrals.
2. Communities where your buyers already gather (groups, forums, events).
3. Direct outreach to specific people who clearly have the problem.

The mindset that makes it bearable

Reframe outreach from "begging strangers" to "offering a fix to people who told me they have the problem." You are not interrupting; you are bringing a solution to a pain you already confirmed is real. Some will say no; each no teaches you something and brings the next yes closer.

Make it a number

Commit to a daily outreach number and track your pipeline: contacted, replied, in conversation, customer. Volume plus learning is the whole game. The full system for finding, reaching, and closing those first customers is the heart of Start Your Business.